Depth of Focus
by more-than-words
Summary: A photo caption mix-up, some awful jokes and a terrible day at the office lead to an emotionally-charged evening for Elizabeth and Henry. Set after season 2.
1. Chapter 1

So I started writing this a couple of weeks ago and then part of the plot got kinda torpedoed by the 3.15 press release but by that point I was in too deep to back out, so here is some post-season-2-pre-season-3 slightly indulgent angst and stuff. Also I have to say a massive thank you to Adi for reading this for me about 800 times and for providing all the best ideas x

Also, sorry Bulgaria.

* * *

 **Chapter One**

"Babe, you didn't tell me you'd remarried."

Elizabeth stopped in the middle of pouring coffee into her travel flask and turned to face Henry. "What?"

"You didn't tell me you'd remarried," he repeated wryly, glancing up from the laptop that sat in front of him on the breakfast table to meet her confused stare.

She didn't even have to ask a follow-up question to know that one of the more idiotic elements of the press would be in some way to blame for the mirth that had taken up residence on Henry's face. "Let me guess, there's something insane on the internet?" She put the coffee pot down on the counter, a little harder than she'd intended to. It was way too early in the morning to be dealing with crap on the internet.

Henry turned his laptop towards her. "Well, I don't know, you tell me."

Abandoning her coffee, Elizabeth crossed the kitchen to get a better look. She groaned as soon as she saw the screen. There, at the top of the page on one of the less respectable political blogs, was a picture of her talking with a man who was very definitely not her husband, but who the caption beneath the picture purported to _be_ her husband.

 _Elizabeth McCord and husband attend State Department reception for the President of Bulgaria._

The photographer had caught the guy smiling at her as he leaned toward her and touched her arm to get her attention. Great.

Henry nudged her hand with his. "Want to tell me about your new beau?"

"You're enjoying this." No doubt as a result of the photo caption mix-up her day was going to be filled with terrible jokes from everyone she encountered, and she really wasn't feeling all that enthused at the prospect. She stared at the picture some more and felt a sense of unease take up residence in her stomach. Henry spoke again before she could quite work out why.

"Tell me about him," he said, light-heartedly like he was fishing for gossip.

Fine. She could play along for a bit. Maybe making light of it would help her see it for the obvious ridiculous joke it was. There was also a chance it would make her husband jealous, and after he had spent so long blaming her for his failings in recent months and leaving her feeling like she was deficient in his eyes, she thought that maybe he deserved it. It may have been petty but she figured he owed her this one. She relaxed her stance and leaned against the edge of the table next to Henry. "Oh, he's wonderful," she said, letting a wistful smile play over her face. "Well-connected, educated, tall… and also the Bulgarian foreign minister. How could I resist? I only spoke to him for two minutes, but when he proposed I just had to say yes. Sorry, babe." She patted Henry's hand consolingly.

"Well, when you put it like that." Henry caught her hand before she could move away, his fingers sliding up to hold her wrist so he could pull her down to him for a playfully possessive kiss, lingering for a moment until the sound of footsteps clattering down the stairs interrupted them and they broke apart. Yeah, he may have been going with it enthusiastically but he was obviously a little jealous. Good.

Alison came over to the table to put down her school books before making breakfast. "What are you guys talking about?"

Elizabeth straightened up and reached over to give her daughter a kiss on the head. "Nothing. I'm leaving."

Alison didn't miss a beat. "To see your new husband?" she teased.

Elizabeth cringed. "Oh God, you saw it, too?"

"Of course." Alison shared a smile with Henry that suggested she found the situation every bit as amusing as he did.

"I'm definitely leaving." Feeling the need to get out of the house before they embarked on any more teasing, Elizabeth hurried through finishing pouring her coffee and putting on her jacket and shoes. When she reached the doorway to the kitchen she lingered a moment, figuring it wouldn't kill her to throw her crazy family a bone. They might as well have their fun, and she might as well goad Henry a little more. "My new husband and I have a business meeting today so, you know, as long as he doesn't have the internet at his hotel or any staff to tell him about the existence of that photo, that should go absolutely fine."

She left without saying goodbye, figuring it would ruin her exit.

The mild amusement lasted all the way to her car. As she settled herself back in the seat for the ride to the State Department, the feeling of unease started to resurface. She just wished she could figure out exactly what it was about.

* * *

Henry and the kids were in the middle of cleaning up from dinner when the front door banged to tell them that Elizabeth had arrived home. Leaving the children to finish washing the plates and wiping down the countertop, Henry stepped back from the counter to greet his wife.

He picked up a towel to wipe his hands and watched as she walked distractedly towards the kitchen to meet her family. She had that look on her face that told Henry her mind was still on work, that she wasn't yet fully present with them. There was also something in her expression that he couldn't quite read, but as she entered the kitchen she looked up and gave him a smile and whatever it was disappeared when he leaned in to give her a kiss hello. "Hey, babe," he greeted her.

"Mmm, hi," she said. Then she pulled back to survey the activity going on in the kitchen. "Well, this looks very industrious."

"We just had dinner. I saved a plate for you. You hungry?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "No, I'm good, thanks."

Huh. That was weird. Henry glanced at his watch: eight thirty. His wife hadn't arrived home quite late enough for her to have eaten before she left the office, and she was _always_ hungry at this time of day. Still. He didn't know exactly what had been on her schedule. "You already eat?"

She hesitated for a moment and before she could say anything, Jason piped up from his place at the sink, elbow-deep in soapy water as he washed dishes to pass to Stevie. "Maybe she went out to eat with her new husband."

The kids all laughed and Henry felt a smile tugging at his own lips. He couldn't help but find the whole photo mix up funny – he figured he could choose to either find it funny or give in to the irrational jealousy that wanted to surface, and jealousy wasn't going to help anything. "Hey, that's right," he said, turning a quizzical look on his wife. "How is your beau?"

It took Elizabeth a moment to get her game face together to play along; no doubt she'd been hearing similar jokes all day and Henry figured her patience for the charade was waning. "Oh, fine," she said, waving her hand dismissively. "He left this evening for business in Bulgaria, won't be back for a while. Hopefully never. Now. I want to hear all about what my original family got up to today, so spill."

Watching her face carefully, Henry felt something tick inside him. Something wasn't quite right, something in the set of her jaw, in the way she spoke about the foreign minister leaving before moving swiftly on to another topic… He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he figured he could let her have the breezy subject change while the kids were in the room.

Then Alison said, with a saucy tone to her voice that Henry wished she didn't know how to do, "How was your _business_ meeting today, Mom? Did he, uh, _give_ you everything you asked for?"

The response was perfunctory. "It was fine." Elizabeth stepped around the kitchen island and headed for the table, where she busied herself with rearranging the placemats and very definitely not looking at any of her family.

"Of course he did, he's not going to turn down her _requests_ on their first day of marriage, is he?" That was Stevie, joking along with Alison. "I'd have thought he'd be offering her all sorts of sweeteners too."

"That meeting must have had a very extensive agenda."

Stevie nudged her sister. "Or a very short one."

"Gross," Jason muttered.

Elizabeth whirled around to fix them with a glare. "You're all gross." Then she looked at Henry. "And you, you're encouraging this?"

He couldn't quite tell if the annoyance in her tone was genuine. He held up his hands in surrender. "Hey, I'm encouraging nothing."

"You're part of the interrogation."

He knew he shouldn't but he just couldn't resist one more joke. "Well, sure. You're the one cheating on me."

Elizabeth froze for a second. Then her face unexpectedly crumpled and even from across the kitchen, Henry could see the tears in her eyes and hear the hitch in her breath. Her tone was adamant and dead serious and a tiny bit desperate as she said, "Henry, I would _never_ –" Her voice cracked and she sucked in a breath that sounded loud in the suddenly silent kitchen.

He cast a glance at the kids standing awkwardly next to the sink, all of them trying to pretend they weren't listening to their parents' suddenly serious exchange. He caught Stevie's eye and tilted his head towards the stairs, directing them to get out of the kitchen and fast. Apparently Elizabeth wasn't OK with them joking around about her new husband anymore. Henry couldn't shake the feeling that something more was going on; he wanted to find out what but he wasn't about to have the conversation with their three kids listening in. Elizabeth didn't need that.

Waiting while Stevie pushed the other two in front of her and hustled them up the stairs, Henry stood watching his wife's face. She looked pale, and dismayed at what he had suggested, and… distraught? Annoyance and upset he could understand, but he couldn't work out why she was so distressed.

As soon as the children were safely out of the room, he held up his hands in a placating gesture and took a step towards her, careful to keep his face soft and open. "I know," he said gently. "I know that, babe. It was just a joke."

"Well, don't joke about that!" It sounded like Elizabeth was on the edge, and if he said the wrong thing she might just break apart.

He nodded as he closed the gap between them, coming to stand a couple of steps in front of her. "OK, I'm won't. I'm sorry."

"I'd never cheat on you."

"I know that." Henry reached out to cup her face in his hand and was startled when she flinched slightly at his touch before relaxing into him and pressing her face against the warmth of his palm. He stroked his thumb over her cheekbone. "I know that," he repeated.

Elizabeth sniffed and blinked. She looked down for a moment as a tear fell from her eyelash to run down her cheek. "It's just one stupid photo and everyone spends the entire day making stupid jokes about me remarrying or cheating on you and I've just had enough."

There was the sense that she wasn't being entirely honest with him. Everything she said had the ring of truth, but from the way she spoke and the way she wouldn't meet his gaze as she said it, Henry figured there was something his wife wasn't telling him. He felt a hint of frustration rise within him; he'd had the feeling recently that she was holding herself slightly back from him, unwilling to share everything of herself as if she was afraid she couldn't entirely trust him.

The feeling hurt, even as he knew she had good reason to be a little wary after the events of the past few months with everything that had happened and how he had handled things – or hadn't handled things, which he knew deep down to be the root of the problem. He could kick himself for that now as he watched Elizabeth edit herself around him, reluctant to share things with him when once it would have been second nature.

He took another half-step into her, making her look back up at him. The tears in her eyes told him it wasn't just that she was pissed off about some silly jokes about a stupid picture on the internet. Concern started to beat inside him. "What happened today?" he asked.

"I spent the day with a bunch of comedians, only none of them were funny," she replied. Again, it was obviously not a lie, but it was also obviously not the whole story, either.

Then something occurred to him. "How did your meeting go with the Bulgarian foreign minister?"

Elizabeth snorted and stepped back, turning away so she could go and pour herself a glass of wine from the bottle Henry had left out on the counter. "Don't you mean my husband?" she said in the tone she occasionally used when she was trying to get a rise out of him.

So she was spoiling for a fight and Henry got the feeling it was so she wouldn't have to talk to him about whatever it was that had happened during the day. He couldn't decide exactly how to feel about that. "No," he said softly, desperate to make amends for the offence he had obviously caused with his final ill-judged joke. He stood with his hands at his sides, his expression open, letting her see that he might have been kidding around before, but now he was serious and he was there for whatever she had to say.

Swallowing her mouthful of wine, Elizabeth regarded him carefully. Then she said, "You know, when I met him last night, I didn't know anything about him. It was so quick. I mean I guess I thought he was a little weird but it was only for a minute and then someone interrupted and that was that. There was still time for someone to take that stupid picture but I told myself I didn't get to spend enough time with him to make a proper judgement."

"OK." Henry leaned back against the table, resisting the urge to move closer to his wife; she seemed reluctant enough as it was to be talking to him and he didn't want to do anything that might upset the delicate balance now that she was.

"Then today everyone was making these idiotic jokes and –" She broke off and drank some more wine, shaking her head like she was casting around for the right words but was unable to find them.

Henry waited her out, watching her pace the floor and feeling his anxiety rise in line with Elizabeth's as she was unable to quell her agitation.

Then suddenly she stopped abruptly in front of him, the look on her face accusatory and ever so slightly outraged. "I don't like you joking about me cheating on you at all, Henry, it's not funny. But it's especially not funny in relation to that… that –"

"That what?" he prompted when she failed to fill in the blank after a moment.

"That _sleaze_ ," she finally said. "I mean, you spend all these months making me feel awful for reminding you of your failings and you don't _talk_ to me for so long, but then suddenly it's like everything is light and fine again and you're making these stupid jokes about _me_ stepping away and –"

"Elizabeth," he cut her off, pushing away from the table. There was lots to talk about, so much to discuss, especially as it seemed his wife's distress was as much about his emotional absence and the way he had acted over the unmentioned Dimitri incident as it was about his terrible jokes, but there was one thing that was at the top of Henry's list. His voice was urgent as he asked, "What do you mean, that sleaze? What happened in your meeting today?"

A moment of indecision passed over Elizabeth's face and Henry could see she was torn over which way to play things, brashness and vulnerability warring for dominance in her expression as she said, almost defensively, "He hit on me, OK? That's what happened at the meeting today. He hit on me."

Henry stared at his wife and any humour he might have previously found in the situation with the Bulgarian foreign minister vanished into thin air.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you so, so much for the fantastic response to the previous chapter! It properly put a smile on my face. And now here is chapter two, which is angsty and confused and a bit unlikely, but I really hope you like it :)

* * *

 **Chapter Two**

The silence in the kitchen was heavy and close, and Elizabeth would have enjoyed watching the thought process playing obviously out across Henry's face if not for the fact she was feeling somewhat uncomfortable, and cross at him, and unsettled by the events of the day. A large part of her just wanted to close the space between them and go to her husband for a hug and the comfort she knew he would readily offer her, but another part of her was genuinely hurt by his comments about her cheating on him even if he _had_ been joking.

It had cut just a little bit too close to the bone after the stresses of the past few months generally and the stresses of today particularly. Instead she drank some more wine and then put the empty glass down on the countertop so she could wrap her arms around herself. Her own comfort would have to do for now.

Henry's face was caught somewhere between palpable concern and instinctive protectiveness. "What –?" he started, then stopped almost straight away to take a different route. "Babe, are you OK?"

She hesitated as she thought about her answer; truth be told, she hadn't really thought about it. She'd just thought about how pissed off she was at everyone making jokes all day, and how pissed off she was at the sleazy bastard for thinking he could pull the crap that he did in their meeting and not suffer any consequences, and how pissed off she was at Henry for not getting why she might not find what he had said funny after everything that had happened between them. Truth be told, she felt a little bit like she was spiralling, and not really all that OK.

"If you say you're fine after thinking about it for so long, I'm not going to believe you." Henry spoke quietly like he was wary of spooking her.

Good. He should be wary. He had contributed to how she was currently feeling. But he was also possibly the solution, and that was why Elizabeth temporarily dropped her prickly defensiveness. "I really hate that photo on the internet," she said quietly. "Daisy managed to get them to change the caption, but still… And if it was just the photo that would be one thing, but today…" She trailed off and shrugged, not really knowing how to explain what she was feeling.

Henry walked over to close most of the gap between them but stopped about a metre away, giving her space. "Tell me what happened," he said, and it was obvious he was trying to keep his voice soft and reasonable, doing his best to quash his instinct to demand the entire story and then get on a plane to Sofia to go and beat up a senior member of the Bulgarian cabinet.

She couldn't deny she loved how keenly Henry felt things and how he so readily stepped up to fight by her side: she had missed that recently. "He hit on me, Henry, what do you want me to say?"

"Tell me what happened," he repeated, with firm insistence. Then when she still failed to elaborate he gave her a prompt, perhaps hoping that a more direct question would elicit a direct answer. "Did he touch you?"

"He didn't hurt me, he's not that stupid." Elizabeth turned to refill her wine; her stomach empty, she could already feel the alcohol starting to hum through her veins.

"Not what I asked."

From somewhere upstairs a floorboard creaked as one of the kids moved around in their room. Elizabeth cast a glance up at the ceiling, feeling bad that she was the reason the kids had all been banished to the upper floors of the house – even though they totally deserved it after ribbing her with husband jokes. And Elizabeth couldn't deny that she was glad they were safely out of earshot for this particular conversation.

When she failed to elaborate after a minute, Henry reached out to touch her arm, his hand smoothing over her shoulder and then squeezing her bicep warmly through the long sleeve of her dress. "Babe?"

Another mouthful of wine before she answered him; she liked the fast buzz it gave her and the way it helped to numb the edges of an awful day. Lifting the glass to her mouth dislodged Henry's hand from her arm. Part of her missed the touch, but part of her thought it made it easier to stay mad at him when she couldn't feel his concern in the heat of his hand against her. She needed to stay mad at him because it made it easier to tell him about what had happened at the meeting, and she _knew_ that she needed to tell him.

"Well, he lingered too long on the introductory handshake but that's nothing unusual. The meeting itself was fine… not fine. Bulgaria's refusing to sign up to the deal that's on the table because they think it gives them a bad hand, but it was just a business meeting. It was what it was. But we need them to sign up, and so when none of my incentives worked I resorted to appealing to his pride." Elizabeth looked down at the wine that swirled lightly in her glass, wishing with the benefit of hindsight that she'd just halted the meeting when it became obvious no material offerings were going to work – at least not any material offerings that were actually on the table.

Henry had drifted closer to her as she spoke and now his fingers lightly brushed the inside of her wrist. "I take it he's a guy who likes it when you stroke his ego."

In her current state of mind, the supportive, probing comment irked her and Elizabeth pulled her hand back, feeling the need to be separate, to guard her personal space as she remembered the events of the meeting. "Yeah," she said curtly, resisting the urge to add _what guy isn't like that?_ "So I told him that we really need Bulgaria to sign up to this thing or else others might start to back out, that he can act as a noble leader in bringing this deal to the region, et cetera, et cetera."

"And then?" Henry prompted.

"Then he tells me there's one sure way to get him on board, one thing that would be compelling enough to make him change his mind." She broke off, forcing herself to meet Henry's eye so that she could read his reaction. For some reason it made her feel slightly better to see that he was hurting, too. Then she felt bad for enjoying his discomfort.

Henry's face had taken on a slightly appalled expression. "He meant..?"

She nodded. "Yeah." She blinked and looked away again. "I thought he was joking."

Henry reached out again to touch her, his fingers curving warmly around her wrist. His voice was quiet and hard to read. "He wasn't."

"No." Elizabeth straightened up and looked back at her husband, torn between letting go and just sinking into him and maintaining the annoyance she currently felt with him. She figured she could do both and so she let herself soften slightly under his touch even as her voice was hard as she spoke again; curating her indignation was the only way to get the story out. "Anyway. I thought he was joking, but I didn't think the joke was funny and I told him that. Then he leaned towards me and he had this look on his face like maybe he wasn't kidding."

Needing a brief moment, she lifted the wine glass to her lips with the intention of taking a sip to stall for time, but she was starting to feel slightly queasy and clattered the glass back to the countertop. She studied Henry's face instead for a moment, watching him stand intent like there was currently nothing in the world more important to him than what she had to say. She thought that was probably true. She just wished it had been true more often in recent months.

She still felt a little bitter about that, and her lingering hurt was all mixed up in the new as she continued. "He told me it was really very easy to get Bulgaria's support for the deal, and he made some quip along the lines of the media already posting that we're married and therefore obviously sleeping together, and therefore why not take advantage? I'm pretty sure I was gaping at him like a goldfish… Anyway, he shifted closer and reached out and brushed my hair behind my shoulder and that's when I threw him out of my office with a stern warning to tell his president that if they don't fall into line on this, they'll find out soon enough what it's like to get _screwed_ over a trade deal."

* * *

There was a dichotomy inside Henry: the relieved pride he felt at Elizabeth chucking the bastard out of her office with such certainty warred with the blistering anger and indignation he felt on her behalf that she'd had to deal with the situation at all.

"You did the right thing, kicking him out of your office," he said, because he thought that she needed to hear that. Needed to know that any diplomatic blowback that might occur wasn't on her.

She nodded. "Yeah, I know."

Elizabeth looked away, finding her half-empty glass of wine of considerable interest as she failed to meet his eye. Henry found he couldn't get a proper read on her; he thought that all her feelings were jumbled up and she couldn't quite decide which to settle on. Her arm beneath his hand was tense, and it seemed like she was very deliberately holding herself slightly back from him even as the rest of her body language suggested she wanted to do just the opposite.

Time to take a chance even though Henry knew she was still legitimately annoyed at him. He slid his hand up her arm to cup her shoulder in his palm and then tugged her gently into him, giving her opportunity to resist but inordinately pleased when she didn't. He wrapped his arms securely around her, feeling her cheek press against his shoulder and, after a minute, her own arms slid loosely around his waist.

"I'm sorry you had to deal with that," he murmured against her hair, turning to press a kiss to the crown of her head. "I want to kill that guy."

Henry felt the twitch of her lips against him as she smiled briefly but he couldn't see her face to be able to tell if there was any humour in it. "Get in line," she said.

Hearing the slight tremor in her voice, he held Elizabeth a little tighter. "Did you report him?"

There was a pause before she answered. "Russell asked how the meeting went. I told him he hit on me so I kicked him out. He said 'good'."

Close enough. Knowing the chief of staff, for all his bluster and bravado, no doubt that 'good' meant that retribution would be served. But still – "You should have called me."

Elizabeth pulled back then so she could look up at him, and her eyes were flashing in a way that suggested she was close to rising to anger. Even so, she sounded muted when she said, "I couldn't, I was busy. I had meetings."

That may have been true enough, but they _always_ found time to text or call each other during the day, usually multiple times and no matter how busy their schedules were. And especially when something bad had happened, something that would no doubt have hit Elizabeth personally: she always found time to call him.

She blinked. "And I didn't want to talk about it."

He found he couldn't quite read what she meant by that. "With me?" he queried.

She gave a non-committal shrug in response. "With anyone. I didn't want to take the chance that anyone would think it was part of the joke."

That cut below the belt. Henry thought that may have been the intent. He couldn't keep the hurt out of his reply. "Hey, I know I was joking with you before you left this morning, but you know that if you had called me with that story it would have been anything but a joke. I would have been there for you."

To her credit, Elizabeth looked like she did know that. "Yeah," she said quietly, and her eyes were swimming bright blue with tears.

He couldn't figure it out. She had obviously wanted his support at the same time as not wanting it, wanted to talk to him even as she hadn't. He lifted his hand to stroke her hair back from her face, feeling her hands bunching in his shirt at his hips. "So why wouldn't you call me? Why so reluctant to tell me what happened today?"

Her response was louder than he had been expecting and sounded very much like it was something that had been brewing for a while; Elizabeth's voice was full of pain that made him feel like his chest was being cracked open. "You said you couldn't talk to me because I remind you of how you failed!" She pushed back from his embrace and squared herself off in front of him, arms folded across her chest in a measure that may have been defensive or protective – or both. The tears were still shining in her eyes but now she looked resolute, certain. She looked him direct in the eye as she said, "Well, I can't talk to you for the same damn reason."

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you so much to everyone for reading and reviewing this story, I'm so glad to know people are enjoying it! I hope you like this slightly trippy, flaky final chapter...

* * *

 **Chapter Three**

The kitchen felt small, too small as she looked at Henry, watching him stand in front of her with an expression of shock on his face, slack-jawed and temporarily mute as he took in what she had said.

It may have been cruel to cut and run, but Elizabeth needed to get out. She felt constricted and exposed and vulnerable, and her instincts were telling her to back away, to find some space. She picked up her glass and swallowed the rest of the wine, self-medicating even as she knew it wasn't the best idea. The glass was quickly abandoned next to the sink as she took a step back towards the kitchen door. "I need a break. I'm going for a walk."

She left Henry standing stunned in the kitchen, her heels striking loudly against the tiles as she moved quickly to the exit, her pace faltering only slightly as the alcohol in her bloodstream made itself known and she bumped against the doorframe on her way to the front door.

Outside. Being outside would help. The air would feel good, she would have space and time to get her thoughts and feelings in order and then she could go back and talk to Henry and they could get everything straightened out.

Except she couldn't just go outside for a walk like a normal person.

Going outside for a walk would mean DS agents following her and wanting to know where she was going before she went there so they could clear the route. They may just be doing their jobs but the very idea of their presence was currently making her feel claustrophobic and controlled.

Where the hell could she go to be by herself for ten minutes when wherever she went she had security following her and everyone knew who she was? Elizabeth stopped dead and whirled around. "Damn it!"

Tears of frustration welled up in her eyes, a couple breaking free to trickle down her cheeks as she thought about the irony of suddenly being surrounded by security when earlier in her office with the Bulgarian foreign minister she had felt wildly on her own even in a building full of people. She stood next to the stairs near the front door, undecided, feeling like she was on the edge of freefall.

Heavy footsteps behind her. "Elizabeth!" Henry jogged to catch up with her and his hand grasped her shoulder to turn her to face him.

She let him turn her, could feel his hands on her biceps but wasn't really fully with him as thoughts and emotions whirled through her mind.

Then Henry, still stuck on their conversation in the kitchen, said, "What do you mean you can't talk to me for the same reason?"

It brought her back into the moment and he sounded so confused that she could have laughed if she wasn't feeling so off-kilter and tinged with desperation. "Because how am I supposed to talk to you when all you think about when you look at me is that I remind you of your failure? How am I supposed to open up to you when you think that about me?"

The response was swift and adamant. "That's not all I think about when I look at you. I promise you that's not all I see." He held her a little tighter and leaned down to look her directly in the eye. His voice was softer when he spoke again. "Baby, most of the time that doesn't even register. I promise. It's one thing, a thing I'm working on. You know that. Right?"

The instinctive – and honest - answer was _yes_ , but the stress of the day and the wine she had drunk and the memory of the Bulgarian foreign minister's hand brushing against her neck coupled with the memory of Henry's recent resentment towards her stopped her from voicing it. Elizabeth pulled away and went into the office, heading for her desk and then using its sturdy surface to hold herself up as she looked down at the papers and books piled there.

She heard Henry follow her, but his footsteps this time sounded wary, and he stopped a good couple of metres away from her like he was being careful not to spook her. "I'm sorry for making those jokes about you cheating on me with that slimeball minister."

It seemed like they were always rehashing the same damn arguments. "You already apologised for that," she said, squeezing her eyes shut and hoping the darkness would provide her with the illusion of space. Then in the spirit of diplomacy and hoping to get quickly to better ground, she gave credit where credit was due. "And you didn't know what happened."

"I know. But I think it might help if I explain."

* * *

There was a part of him that thought maybe he should back off, give Elizabeth some space for a while when she was obviously feeling a little cornered and overwhelmed.

But Henry feared if he backed off now, they wouldn't get back round to talking about it, and there would be something new to grow and fester between them – and he couldn't allow that to happen. Not when they had been making such great progress since the whole mess involving Dimitri had been sorted, and not when the topic at hand was so important.

And not when he knew a lot of the responsibility for Elizabeth's reluctance to talk to him about it rested on his shoulders – and not just because of the joke.

He took a tentative step closer, keeping a bit of distance for now but hoping to lessen it a little bit. He watched Elizabeth's shoulders tense beneath her dress as she heard him move but she relaxed again after a moment and so Henry held his ground. He was aware that trying to justify his jokes over what he had come to think of as the fake husband photo may not be considered the best strategy following what she had just told him about her meeting with the man, but he thought that the explanation might help.

It might at least make Elizabeth feel less vulnerable if he opened himself up right along with her.

"I know those jokes were stupid," he said. "And knowing now that he made a play to get you to sleep with him makes _me_ feel like a sleaze, but… I felt like I could make a joke about you cheating on me because I know you never would. I could make the joke because I'm confident that we're solid. That we're good. It could be a joke because I know it's never going to be reality."

He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts and trying to think how to put into words the second part of what he wanted to say. He could feel a slight tremor in his body as he willed himself to keep it together. His anger towards the Bulgarian minister for his vile presumption, the fierce love and protectiveness he felt towards Elizabeth and the worry and pain and guilt that had collected over time all swirled within him, and he thought he maybe understood a little of what his wife was currently feeling even as his experience of events – past and present – was different. He told himself to focus on the good, because the good was what they used to reinforce their foundations.

He had meant what he said: he was confident that he and Elizabeth were good, no matter what they might be trying to deal with.

Elizabeth turned around then, his words apparently having bought him a hearing as he had hoped they might. Her expression was still a little guarded but the look in her eyes gave her away; she wanted the connection just as much as he did, no matter how annoyed with him she might be. She leaned back against the desk and watched him across the distance.

Henry took a deep breath; it was important to get this right. "And also…" He trailed off and shifted uneasily on the spot.

"And also?" Elizabeth prompted him when words failed to materialise after several long seconds.

Now or never. _Just say it, Henry_. "And also I know that a lot of the blame for our problems lies with me. And the thought that you might feel even for a second that you have to look elsewhere for intimacy or comfort is just too awful to bear. It was easier to make a joke than to face up to the fact that I caused you pain you didn't deserve."

* * *

There was silence for a long moment after Henry finished speaking.

Elizabeth shifted her weight against the desk, processing. She blinked and the room tilted, the wine she had drunk having the opposite effect to the one she had been hoping for. She had been hoping it would make her just unsteady enough to make the off-kilter world seem straight again, a cheap fix to make her feel better temporarily.

Truth was she was in denial that the only real fix was the long way round.

She was aware that the quiet was dragging on and while Henry was waiting for her patiently, she could tell he was desperate for a response. She thought after his confession that he deserved a good one.

She pushed away from the desk to close a fraction of the gap between them. "Well, I'm pretty sure I deserved a little bit of it," she said. "But thank you for saying that. I needed to hear it."

Part of her was pleased that he seemed so worried about her feeling neglected and restless in their relationship; she felt it was only fair after the heartache he had put her through. Most of her, though, just wanted things to be OK again. They had been getting there, she thought, in recent weeks. Things had been getting better even if wounds were still barely-healed and raw. Then the stupid Bulgarian foreign minister came along and shook everything up in more ways than one.

The memory of the day started her stress levels rising again and Elizabeth was unable to stop her face from crumpling. "I'm sorry for walking out on you before, but today… Today was _awful_."

She swiped at her eyes to force away the tears that once again started to well up, and when she next looked up Henry was standing directly in front of her, an expression of indecision on his face as he debated whether or not she would welcome physical contact. Needing her husband more than she needed to nurse her still-tender pride, she gave him the answer he was looking for and stepped into him, resting her ear over his heart as she slid her arms around his waist. His own arms came up in an instant to hold her tightly, squeezing her to him like he was afraid if he let go she might run away.

"I know," he murmured into her hair. "I know, it's OK."

Henry pressed a kiss to the top of her head and then pulled back slightly so he could press another one to her forehead, his hand sliding up to cup the back of her head, fingers rubbing softly against the strands of her hair. His other hand rested at the small of her back, holding her against him, sure and strong and steady.

Elizabeth stood in the circle of his embrace, feeling the beat of his heart against hers and his chest rising and falling with each breath in time with her own. For the first time all day she felt centred and secure. She wondered if she could have got there faster if she had called Henry as soon as she had chucked the sleazy minister out of her office.

Probably.

But she had felt like she was always the one needing him, reaching out, and she had felt the need to protect herself, make him wait for a little while. Now she felt the need to make sure that she and Henry were on the same page. She tightened her arms around his waist, the better to feel him pressed against her. "For what it's worth, you're the only one I want comfort and intimacy with."

She could feel his smile as his lips still rested against her forehead, brushing against her skin as he spoke. "For what it's worth: likewise."

"Tomorrow will be better, right?" She really needed to hear Henry say that it would be, needed him to get that she wasn't just asking about the day after a terrible meeting with a sleazy politician and awful jokes version of tomorrow, but _their_ tomorrow. She needed to know that they were on the right track, that they would keep working together to get back to where they wanted to be.

Henry drew back just enough so he could look down and see her face. The smile on his own face was soft and certain. "Yes," he said simply.

She returned his smile and felt a little of their normal easy lightness returning, even as complex and difficult emotions hovered just below the surface, slightly better for the hard conversation they'd just shared, the things they'd drawn out of each other. She thought that the lightness was getting easier each time; it was getting easier again to find their way to normal after dealing with a problem. She thought that a new day would help even more. "Good," she replied. One eyebrow quirked up and it felt almost natural to fall back into a pattern of familiar loving banter. "In that case, I'm going to bed to make tomorrow get here quicker. You're welcome to join me if you like."

It was a peace offering, of sorts, even if her forced enthusiasm fell somewhat flat.

"Oh, that's an offer a man can't refuse," Henry teased along. Then he stopped abruptly and hurriedly backtracked as he realised what he had said. "And of course by a man, I mean me. An offer _I_ can't refuse."

Elizabeth held her tongue just long enough for a look of panic to start to spread across Henry's face. She shoved him lightly in the shoulder. "Don't worry, no one else gets that offer."

He smiled back at her. "A fact that makes me inordinately grateful." He sobered slightly. "I love you, you know? More than anything."

"I know. I love you, too."

Henry dipped his head to kiss her gently and there was a tenderness in his touch that made Elizabeth ache. He lingered for a minute, his lips pressed to hers; everything felt suspended until she shifted against him, breaking the kiss and making time start moving again. Her head was pulsing and she leaned more of her weight onto her husband, squeezing her eyes closed. The stress of the day and the alcohol she had drunk and the difficult conversation she'd had with Henry conspired to drain her of her energy.

She was just so damn tired. She was sure everything used to be so much easier, but couldn't remember exactly when.

"Come here," Henry said, even though she was already there, had always been there, even though she had never gone away anywhere in the first place.

A brief flare of ire at his unintentional suggestion that she was the one with somewhere to come back from.

Then Henry tugged her closer again, arms strong around her, and she was reminded why she would never consider going anywhere – reminded that, no matter what might have come before, Henry hadn't gone anywhere, either, and she was sure he never would. They were solid. They were good, memories of failings and photos and sleazy ministers be damned.

They'd stumble their way together to the end point.


End file.
